Arianism

Arianism was a nontrinitarian Christian heresy which originated with the Egyptian presbyter Arius in the 4th century AD. Arius rejected the Holy Trinity, claiming that Jesus was begotten within time by God the Father, and was therefore not co-eternal with God. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the First Council of Constantinople in 381, the Christian Church officially came out in support of the Trinity, rejecting Arianism as a heresy. However, Arianism flowered in Constantinople, and the Gothic bishop Ulfilas spread the faith among the Gothic tribes across the Danube; he translated the Bible into Gothic. Soon, Arianism spread to other Germanic tribes, including the Lombards, Vandals, Suebi, and Burgundii. However, by the 8th century AD, the tribes had adopted Nicene Christianity (Catholicism) instead, starting with the Franks in 496, the Visigoths in 587, and the Lombards in 653. However, Arian theology influenced the LDS Church of Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, two modern-day Chrisitan denominations.